Friday, December 7, 2012

My family has a few silly quirks. Im sure your family does too. But I have been noticing a few lately that I wanted to record some of them - especially Marlie's because her quirks will change throughout her life.

My quirks:

I hate ice in my drinks. Any drink. I hate ice. It waters down your drink, and just when you're trying to get that last little bit of your drink out of the cup, the ice sticks to the bottom of your glass and as soon as you think your safe- BAM! it smacks you in the face. Drinking your favorite beverage should be enjoyable, not diluted and dangerous!

I make the bed before I get in it. I know this is weird but I blame my mother because she does the same thing. There's a good reason. Ken makes a mess of the blankets when he sleeps, he wraps them around his feet, gathers them up around his face, and tucks them between his knees. and then throws them all over the place when he gets out of bed. How am I guaranteed my fair share of covers if they are not evenly distributed on the bed before I get in??

I hate/will not clean out my hair brush. I know what you're thinking... I mean whats worse? Having to yank out the hair in your brush so its clean? Or having the lump of hair get larger and larger until your husband cleans it out for you because it grosses HIM out? The thing is, both options are horrible.I can't stand hair on my hands. Ask my mom and she'll tell you that I have been that way since I was little. HATE it. Kens question is "why does it bother you? its your hair!" and my reply is "No. No. It's not my hair. It was once my hair. But my body lost its possession of that hair when it expelled it from my body and left it laying dead in my brush." Hair is gross.But thanks to Ken, I never have to clean my brush! YAY!

Kens Quirks:

Breyers or Bust: Ken will not eat any kind of ice cream but Breyers. And if you know anything about ice cream, you know it's the most expensive. I mean, we're talking $6/half gallon in some stores. To me, ice cream is ice cream. Ken says he can taste all the artificial crap they put in all those cheap ice creams.... but I find it odd that he can say that while eating a Big Mac and fries.

He cleans. and cleans and cleans and cleans. Now, the only reason I say this is a "quirk" is because usually its the woman that goes on a cleaning spree. Ken walks in the door and even if I have cleaned the house already, he goes through like this little guy from wall-e. Don't get me wrong, its nice to have a husband that enjoys a clean home. It's just an interesting trait to find in a man.

He cleans the car before we go on road trips. I have sort of broken him of this habit because it made absolutely no logical sense to clean a car right before we planned on trashing the crap out of it. As many of you know, traveling with (a) child(ren) is not a clean or organized activity. On many of our travels, marlie has wet through her diaper onto her carseat, which for the rest of the road trip would smell like pee, spilled milk, snacks that roll under the seat and stay there till our vacation is over, you get the idea. I think after we had marlie and did a few road trips with her, he finally realized that his efforts to keep the car clean on the road were in vain.

Marlie's Quirks:
(there are a few more here just because some of them are so funny. and some of them are weird things that she has grown out of. I just want to record them so I can embarrass her later in life.)

She used to be obsessed with my cooking spoons. this phase has passed but it was one that drove me insane. every morning the first place she would go was not the fridge to grab a yogurt, it was the drawer with the spoons and spatulas. And she wasn't grabbing one to help me make some pancakes. She just wanted one to sit and watch a movie with. That's it. A companion spoon. You know, someone to share life's experiences with. You guys, she would even sleep with them. It was the strangest thing I had ever seen.

Goodbye spoons, hello plastic swords. As you may have guessed. When she finally realized that mom really didn't want her to have the spoons, she found a toy sword at my friend Sue's house and it was love at first sight. The sword and Marlie were inseperable. The mind of a child is interesting. I babysit for a friend of mine now and then, she has a 6 year old and Marlie loves him, but he's not so fond of Marlie because she's small and annoying and follows him everywhere. He would complain about Marlie coming over every time it was time for me to babysit and then his mom said "Anthony, she sleeps with 2 swords..." he sat and thought for a minute and said "Ok, I guess she can come over." So the sword obsession could be a door opener for her in the future!

She planks when she poops.I know this is a gross topic. But lets be honest, the logical pooping position would obviously be squating.... but Marlie does this (see photo below). We are working on the potty

training thing (I won't open that can of worms) but until it is mastered, this is the preferred pooping position. Although she doesn't put her face on the ground like that. But if that paints a funnier picture for you just slap a 3 year old girl's body on that soccer player and you've got Marlie.

She doesn't likehair on her fingers. I can't figure out where she got that one....

If you have a dog, and you have a leash, she will find both and drag your dog everywhere she goes. Which is why most dogs have a love/hate relationship with Marlie. They love her because she's a messy eater, they hater because she sucks at walking a dog.

For now that's all I can think of. I know there's more, but people keep calling my phone and distracting me!!

Saturday, November 10, 2012

I really suck at updating my blog... if you havent already noticed. Over the last few months we have experienced:

potty training marlie

marlie un-potty training herself

nikki turning into some kind of demon as a result of said "reverse potty training"

re-potty training marlie

general conference

halloween

nikki being ca-RAZY sick with a super bad sinus infection AND an ear infection

ken getting sick after nikki gets better

my mom and dad came to visit!

so, for a while there marlie was doing SOOOOO good with potty training. She wore underwear all the time and told me when she needed to go potty. she did awesome at church and out in public. i would put her to bed with underwear on and she would wake up dry. i. was. excited. the only thing we had to do was work on #2 which i expected to be absolutely horrible... which it was... and not because i had to deal with poop... but because out of the blue, marlie thought that it was just easier to go potty in her undies... so she started wetting her pants and stopped telling me that she had to go potty. so i put her back in diapers and continued to try and potty train her. she still did well going pee... but put was and still is a WAAAAAAAAAYYYYY different story. I know exactly when she needs to go poop. she has a specific face she makes, and certain spot she goes to hide (either behind the couch or in her room) so when she makes that face or i catch her hiding, i put her on the potty, and i swear i could make her sit on the toilet for DAYS and she will NOT go to the bathroom... but as soon as i stick a diaper back on her, she poops. long story short.... im still going insane....general conference was at the beginning of october. it was awesome! i love hearing our prophets speak. it makes me feel like im talking to a really old friend that does nothing but give you good advice.back in september i started getting sick. it started with a crazy weird spell of horrible vertigo. if you have never had vertigo, just get in a swivel chair and spin around for at least 15 minutes straight, then stand up and try to function like a normal human being.... not.fun. then a sore throat moved in. then that went away and the congestion hit me really bad. then cough and congestion, cough and congestion, cough and congestion, then my top teeth started to hurt. not one in particular - all of them. when i ate, they were just sore. which was super weird but apparently thats a sign of a sinus infection. THEN (yes theres more) my ears started to hurt. all of this was on TOP of the vertigo. so i went to the doctor gave me a ton of meds and then i got better!! haha. worst. sickness. ever. and i still have the vertigo.... my parents came to visit at the end of october and it was so fun to hang out with them. we went to the pumpkin patch, and ate yummy food and just had a good time hanging out.other than that our lives are pretty ordinary. i have been riding horses a lot, i hope to go to a show in the spring. ken has been working out and he put some of his old pants on the other day he said that he fits in them again. so hes happy that he is able to accomplish his goal. marlie is talking more and more every day. and i am working really hard to communicate better with her. i feel like i get frustrated too easily so i have been working really hard to be more sensitive and calm when she makes mistakes and its amazing how much of a difference it makes. its interesting because thats how i work with my horse. if i ride him when im in a bad mood, i usually get bad results from him and i get even more mad. when i ride in a good mood i have a happy horse who is much more willing to work for me. i never thought that would carry over into parenting until i had marlie. funny how that works. anyways, thats all i have for right now. the holidays are coming up and we are going to michigan for christmas so there will be lots of pictures of that!

Saturday, July 28, 2012

There was a crazy storm blowing in towards Rexburg so I HAD to take some pictures!

Me and Marlie in front of the Salt Lake temple

Marlie LOVES her grampa

The only photo I got of Marlie and Jesus was one of her running away from Him... not sure what to think of that :)

This is one of my favorites. Grampa was showing Marlie the "owies" Jesus has on His hands and feet.

we had TONS of fun at lagoon... and i found out that my 3 year old is braver than i am....

marlie loves her gramma too!!

we were on our way to martins cove and we got a flat tire.... so i thought i would snap a picture. such a pretty view

another awesome storm on the way to martins cove

my dad likes to live life on the edge... of a cliff....

handcart replicas

marlie got to pull the little kids handcart with her little friend.

she had so much fun!

the pioneers were allowed 17lbs per person on the handcarts.

these monuments were a beautiful reminder of how much the saints loved and trusted the Lord. you could definitely feel the spirit of the young men who carried people across the frozen sweet water river here.

view of martins cove from the sweet water river

I will post more picture soon. We had so much fun going all over the place with my parents. It was nice that they got some time off so we can do all the things we did. there was a lot of driving involved but it was well worth it. If you havent been to martins cove i would HIGHLY recommend it. it was a real eye opener to actually BE there where people had struggled to survive in freezing weather with no warm clothes, no food, and small children and elderly people to care for. i am grateful for their sacrifices - im not sure i would be so willing. it really was a neat experience, especially since we went right before pioneer day. i loved it! more stories and pictures to come!

Saturday, May 12, 2012

We went to Seattle this last weekend to see the Detroit Tigers play against the Seattle Mariners (Mariners won... ken was depressed). While we were there I had my sister-in-law do some family pictures. We went to the Bellevue Botanical Gardens and it was a lot of fun. These were some of my favorites!

Sunday, February 26, 2012

Marlie loves the movie "Madagascar" and she watches it all the time. Just a few minutes ago, she was sitting next to me drinking a cup of water. She would fill her mouth with a little water and then SPRAY it out of her mouth. She did this a few times and I asked her to stop. then she did it one more time and after she spit the water out she said "yuck! its sea water!" hahaha and then i realized that she picked that up from the movie where they are stranded on the beach, the zebra makes drinks for everyone and they all spit it out because its just sea water haha. i was trying to find a clip of that part of the movie but i cant find one. other funny things she will say is "amember ooo you arrrrre" which is translated to "remember who you are" from the lion king. that one cracks me up every time because she is super serious when she says it. when ken plays a video game and he loses, he will say "OH COME ON!!" and so now when im putting marlies jammies on or im doing something that is taking WAY too long in her mind, she will say "oh COME ON MAMA!"

other news, marlie slept in a toddler bed for the first time last night. there is a lady in the ward that give me all of her hand-me-downs and she gave me a toddler bed. i was SO excited! those things are super spendy... at least i think so because im a major tight wad haha. marlie did awesome for her first night in the big girl bed. i had to go in there a few times to clear off all the toys that she had put on her bed but as soon as she was asleep she slept through the night! so we are really proud of her! thats all i have for now!

I sing like one of those people on american idol that say "all of my friends and family told me that i should audition so i did" and you think they might be good and they actually make you want to slit your wrist and do push-ups in salt water... and i sing in the shower

I don't always clean up my mess when i cook... it makes ken really mad

I write left handed and eat left handed... everything else i do with my right hand. is that wierd???

I win pretty much nothing.

I lose most of my battles with inanimate objects. aka: im a klutz (clutz?? cluts?? how the heck do you spell that?)

I never get on a horse from the right side.

I listen to music when i drive marlie always wants me to dance in the car which is awkward for everyone involved.

I'm scared of the unknown

I read ...currently im reading the help. and the count of monte cristo but i think i will be reading that for the rest of my life...

Tuesday, January 3, 2012

first off, i just want to say that i'm the worst parent ever.... i didn't take a single picture at christmas!! not ONE!! and i have no idea why! but overall christmas was really good. we opened presents with just our family on christmas eve, and then opened presents at my grandma's house on christmas day. we went to church on christmas morning, which was really nice. it was overall a really quiet holiday. my sister recently found out that she is in the beginning stages of diabetes and she has decided to participate in a study in seattle so this last week she and my mom went up to seattle for her evaluation so ken, marlie, and i all went up there to visit with them. it was good to see them even if it was only for a little while. on our way home to portland, my mom text me and said that my brother dylan was in the hospital because of a gas leak in their apartment. i didnt really know what that meant as far as how he was doing but my mom said she would call me when she landed in salt lake. my mom called me later that night and said that he was ok but that he came really close to dying. dylan got married 2 weeks ago and so his wife came home an hour earlier than normal and she found him face down on the floor. she thought he was playing around and when he didnt respond she flipped him over and he was unconscious and foaming at the mouth. she ran and got the neighbor and called 911 and the paramedics came and rushed him to the hospital. hes home now and feeling better and we are all so glad that his wife came home earlier than normal, we are hoping that the property owner will pay for their medical bills and compensate for the wages lost from not working but we arent sure what will happen. we are just glad he made it out!